Six weeks into his presidency, Donald Trump is addressing Congress and the nation Tuesday night, laying out his targets for the following 4 years.
ABC Information, together with PolitiFact, is reside fact-checking Trump’s speech statements which are exaggerated, want extra context or are false.
The president teased on Monday it will be a “large evening” and Home Speaker Mike Johnson instructed Fox Information over the weekend to anticipate “fireworks.”
This story is being up to date all through Trump’s speech.
President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress on the U.S. Capitol on Mar. 4, 2025 in Washington
Mandel Ngan-Pool/Getty Pictures
TRUMP CLAIM: Joe Biden particularly let the value of eggs get uncontrolled—and we’re working arduous to get it again down.
FACT-CHECK: Missing context.
Although egg costs did improve beneath President Joe Biden, they’ve just lately surged beneath Trump too — and that is due to hen flu, which has led to the deaths of 136 million birds since 2022, in keeping with the American Farm Bureau Federation.
Whereas the value of eggs was persistently rising attributable to inflation beneath Biden’s administration, the primary important worth hike occurred in 2022, when hen flu started infecting flocks of birds within the U.S. Egg costs rose from $1.93 per dozen to $4.82 per dozen over the course of simply that one 12 months, in keeping with knowledge from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The costs moderated once more, again all the way down to the $2-$3 vary throughout the remainder of Biden’s presidency — however have shot again as much as a record-high $4.95 this January, once more attributable to hen flu.
-ABC Information’ Cheyenne Haslett
TRUMP CLAIM: Trump received a mandate within the election
FACT-CHECK: That is within the eye of the beholder.
Trump’s victory was clear, however by historic requirements, it was no landslide.
Trump has cause to have a good time successful each the Electoral School and the favored vote. Actually, he turned solely the second Republican to win the favored vote since 1988, after George W. Bush in his 2004 reelection win. Trump received every of the seven battleground states that political analysts mentioned would resolve the election.
As well as, the overwhelming majority of U.S. counties noticed their margins shift in Trump’s route, each in locations the place Republicans traditionally do effectively and locations the place Democrats typically have an edge.Then again, Trump’s margins of victory — each in uncooked votes and in percentages — have been small by historic requirements, even for the previous quarter century, when shut elections have been the rule, together with the 2000 Florida recount election and Trump’s earlier two races in 2016 and 2020.
Trump’s victory additionally got here with out a large increase for down-ballot Republicans. Republicans misplaced a little bit floor within the Home, which was already narrowly divided, and whereas Republicans flipped the Senate, Democrats received 4 Senate races in key battleground states at the same time as former Vice President Kamala Harris was shedding these states to Trump.
-PolitiFact’s Aaron Sharockman
TRUMP CLAIM: “We ended the final administration’s insane electrical car mandate, saving our auto staff and corporations from financial destruction.”
FACT-CHECK: Wants context.
There was no electrical car mandate put in place by the Biden administration. The Biden Environmental Safety Company applied tailpipe emissions requirements final March that established a mean of allowed emissions throughout a car producer’s whole fleet of provided autos.
The requirements would have solely impacted automobiles from mannequin years 2027 to 2032. The requirements allowed for a spread of useable applied sciences, together with totally electrical automobiles, hybrids and improved inside combustion engines. Trump did signal an government order on his first day in workplace to revoke these new requirements.
-ABC Information’ Kelly Livingston
TRUMP CLAIM: The Paris Local weather Accord was costing the U.S. “trillions”
FACT-CHECK: False.
Trump defended his determination to drag out of the Paris local weather settlement, saying the pact was costing the U.S. “trillions of {dollars}.”
That is unfaithful.
The Trump administration defended the choice to withdraw from the local weather settlement, partially, primarily based on projections by guide NERA Financial Consulting. It concluded that restrictions on fossil gasoline emissions would lead to a better value of manufacturing, and a better value of manufacturing would translate into the closure of uncompetitive manufacturing companies. These closures, in flip, would imply fewer manufacturing jobs.
The guide estimated that these losses and their knock-on results past the manufacturing sector would quantity to 1.1 million jobs misplaced by 2025 and 6.5 million by 2040. The lack of jobs leads to a corresponding decline in gross home product, with a lack of $250 billion by 2025 that accelerates to $3 trillion by 2040.
So the local weather settlement wasn’t costing the U.S. trillions of {dollars}. It hypothetically might.
However even when it did, the research says that the long-term projections didn’t consider the entire offsetting job positive factors and GDP progress related to a clear tech transition.
-PolitiFact’s Aaron Sharockman
TRUMP CLAIM: Elon Musk discovered folks within the Social Safety system as previous as 369
FACT-CHECK: That is deceptive.
Elon Musk shared a chart on X and mentioned he discovered thousands and thousands of individuals in a Social Safety database over the age of 110, together with 1 who was within the 360-369 age bracket.
Elon Musk gestures within the gallery on the day of U.S. President Donald Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress, within the Home Chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., March 4, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
The performing Social Safety commissioner mentioned that folks older than 100 who wouldn’t have a date of loss of life related to their Social Safety document “should not essentially receiving advantages.” Latest Social Safety Administration knowledge exhibits that about 89,000 folks aged 99 and older obtain Social Safety funds.
Authorities databases could classify somebody as 150 years previous for causes peculiar to the advanced Social Safety database or due to lacking knowledge, however that does not imply that thousands and thousands of funds are delivered fraudulently to folks with implausible ages.
-PolitiFact’s Aaron Sharockman
TRUMP CLAIM: “Gold playing cards” do not want congressional approval
FACT-CHECK: Deceptive.
Immigration specialists say Trump can neither create a brand new inexperienced card program nor shut down an current one with out congressional motion.
Trump introduced a plan to provide folks authorized everlasting residency within the U.S. in the event that they pay $5 million. The so-called “gold card” could be just like a inexperienced card in that it will let folks reside and work within the U.S. completely and supply a pathway to citizenship.
Trump has described this system as a strategy to minimize the U.S. deficit and has mentioned it will exchange the EB-5 immigrant investor visa program. However he hasn’t offered an official doc creating this system.
-PolitiFact’s Aaron Sharockman
TRUMP CLAIM: “Tons of of billions of {dollars} of fraud” discovered by DOGE
FACT-CHECK: That is unverifiable.
This declare is unverifiable as a result of DOGE has but to launch everything of its work or specify which cuts have been “fraud” versus “waste.” DOGE has claimed to have saved $106 billion in whole financial savings, not “lots of of billions” in fraud, and even Elon Musk himself has mentioned they’ve largely discovered “waste” and “largely not fraud.”
DOGE has claimed it has saved a complete of $106 billion in federal cash from a “mixture of asset gross sales, contract/lease cancellations and renegotiations, fraud and improper fee deletion, grant cancellations, curiosity financial savings, programmatic modifications, regulatory financial savings, and workforce reductions.” The determine stays unverifiable and DOGE’s web site claims to have posted solely 30% of the receipts supporting this whole.
Even Musk himself mentioned on Joe Rogan’s podcast final week that almost all of what DOGE is discovering is “waste,” somewhat than outright fraud. “Solely the federal authorities might get away with this degree of waste. It is largely waste. It is largely not fraud, it is largely waste. It is largely simply ridiculous issues occurring,” Musk mentioned.
-ABC Information’ Soo Rin Kim and Will Steakin
TRUMP CLAIM: There will likely be a little bit disturbance for Individuals due to tariffs
FACT-CHECK: Missing context.
The Yale Finances Lab estimates that the tariffs might value the typical family as much as $2,000 yearly. Vehicles and automotive components are large exports from Canada and Mexico, and tariffs might improve the price of a brand new automotive by over $3,000 per car on high of final 12 months’s common new automotive worth of $44,811, in keeping with JP Morgan Analysis. Most economists predict that costs, and due to this fact, inflation will go up, with customers seeing larger costs for meals, gasoline, garments, footwear, toys and different home items.
-ABC Information’ Soo Youn
TRUMP CLAIM: “Not way back … 1 in 10,000 kids had autism. Now it is 1 in 36. There’s one thing unsuitable”
FACT-CHECK: Partially true however missing context.
It is unclear the place Trump — and Kennedy, who repeats the identical stat usually — acquired the 1 in 10,000 quantity, although he’s appropriate concerning the present quantity, which is 1 in 36, and he’s appropriate that autism circumstances are rising.
In 2000, roughly 1 in 150 kids within the U.S. born in 1992 have been recognized with autism in contrast with 2020, throughout which one in 36 kids born in 2012 have been recognized, in keeping with knowledge from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.
Some psychiatrists and autism specialists instructed ABC Information it is vital to spotlight the rising charges of autism, and that no less than Trump and Kennedy are placing a highlight on it.
“On the intense facet, I believe it’s actually vital to put an emphasis on these very excessive charges,” Dr. Karen Pierce, a professor within the division of neurosciences on the College of California, San Diego and co-director of the united states Autism Heart of Excellence, instructed ABC Information.
-ABC Information’ Mary Kekatos
TRUMP CLAIM: Mexican authorities handed over 29 of the largest cartel leaders due to tariffs imposed on them, “They wish to make us glad”
FACT-CHECK: True
Final week, whereas the Mexican safety cupboard and the Mexican economic system secretary have been in D.C. for bilateral conferences with their U.S. counterparts to barter forward of the potential imposition of U.S. tariffs on Mexico, Mexico introduced they have been handing over 29 criminals to the U.S.
One among these criminals had been requested by the U.S. for many years, Rafael Caro Quintero. He was wished for the homicide of DEA’s agent Kiki Camarena again in 1985.
Whereas a few of these criminals had their extradition suspended by Mexican judges, others had been detained for lower than per week with out the choice to struggle again their extradition in Mexico earlier than they have been despatched to the US.
Though the Mexican authorities positively bent some Mexican legal guidelines and have been extremely questioned, they defended the transfer by saying this was a matter of nationwide safety and that they acted inside hours after receiving a request from the U.S. authorities.
Many in Mexico noticed the transfer as a strategy to please President Trump and persuade him to droop or cancel the U.S. tariffs towards Mexico.
-ABC Information’ Anne Laurent
